About Me

I'm a semi-retired professional man, living in the Midwestern United States. This blog is a personal blog and is not directly connected with my professional practice (although I may draw upon my professional experiences, as well as my personal experiences, in writing my blog posts). This is a place for personal, not professional, opinions.

July 2015

07/31/2015

"Never throw a thoroughly wasted tantrum. When this kind of energy is expended you want an audience. Although explosive outbursts are generally the prerogative of the boss of a privately owned corporation they should be tried now and again by underlings who enjoy toying with being fired. There is nothing more satisfyingly fulfilling than hearing and seeing devastation wrought from your violence. Especially at another's expense and inconvenience. But fury when intense can quickly become a peril. Be careful striking hard or explosive objects or others which may ricochet back. And always make sure the walls are paper thin before attempting to perforate them with your fists."

The book is chock full of nuggets like those, the kind that help a true gentleman bulldoze his way over the delicate origami paper cranes and freshly sodded lawns of a politically correct world.

07/29/2015

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it." --Kim Jong-un, as told to Jack Handy.

"It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man." --Arnold Schwarzenegger, as told to Jack Handy.

"Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: 'Mankind'. Basically, it's made up of two separate words - 'mank' and 'ind'. What do these words mean ? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind." --Rick Perry, as told to Jack Handy.

"If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave man, I guess I'm a coward." --Donald Trump, as told to Jack Handy.

"It's true that every time you hear a bell, an angel gets its wings. But what they don't tell you is that every time you hear a mouse trap snap, an Angel gets set on fire." --Pope Francis, as told to Jack Handy.

"Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet." --Dick Cheney, as told to Jack Handy.

"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it." --Matthew McConaughey, as told to Jack Handy.

"He was a cowboy, mister, and he loved the land. He loved it so much he made a woman out of dirt and married her. But when he kissed her, she disintegrated. Later, at the funeral, when the preacher said, 'Dust to dust,' some people laughed, and the cowboy shot them. At his hanging, he told the others, 'I'll be waiting for you in heaven--with a gun.' " --Billy Bob Thornton, as told to Jack Handy.

"The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face." --Hillary Clinton, as told to Jack Handy.

"Most people don't realize that large pieces of coral, which have been painted brown and attached to the skull by common wood screws, can make a child look like a deer." --Martha Stewart, as told to Jack Handy.

"If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is 'God is crying.' And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is 'Probably because of something you did.' "--Miley Cyrus, as told to Jack Handy.

"I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn't say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there's a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid." --J.K. Rowling, as told to Jack Handy

"I bet it was pretty hard to pick up girls if you had the Black Death." --Bill Clinton, as told to Jack Handy.

"It's too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs." --Bear Grylls, as told to Jack Handy

"If you're traveling in a time machine, and you're eating corn on the cob, I don't think it's going to affect things one way or the other. But here's the point I'm trying to make: Corn on the cob is good, isn't it?" --Stephen Hawking, as told to Jack Handy

"Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over to the person's house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch? A jack-o-lantern with a knife stuck in the side of it's head with a note that says 'You.' After that I usually feel a lot better, and no harm done." --Kevin Funnell as told to Jack Handy.

07/24/2015

"Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing." ― Rachel Naomi Remen

07/22/2015

From a nineteen year-old issue of First Things that I could no longer locate in the archives:

On May 24, 1996, a group of Islamic terrorists announced that they had "slit the throats" of seven French Trappist monks whom they had kidnapped from the monastery of Tibherine in Algeria and held as hostages for two months. Prior to the kidnapping, the superior of the monastery, Father Christian de Cherge, had left with his family this testament "to be opened in the event of my death."

If it should happen one day-and it could be today-that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to encompass all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country. I ask them to accept that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I ask them to pray for me: for how could I be found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to be able to associate such a death with the many other deaths that were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity.

My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I share in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in that which would strike me blindly. I should like, when the time comes, to have a clear space which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of all my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.

I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if this people I love were to be accused indiscriminately of my murder. It would be to pay too dearly for what will, perhaps, be called "the grace of martyrdom," to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he may be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam. I know the scorn with which Algerians as a whole can be regarded. I know also the caricature of Islam which a certain kind of Islamism encourages. It is too easy to give oneself a good conscience by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideologies of the extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam are something different; they are a body and a soul. I have proclaimed this often enough, I believe, in the sure knowledge of what I have received in Algeria, in the respect of believing Muslims-finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel I learned at my mother's knee, my very first Church.

My death, clearly, will appear to justify those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic: "Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!" But these people must realize that my most avid curiosity will then be satisfied. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills-immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of his Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, delighting in the differences.

For this life given up, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that joy in everything and in spite of everything. In this "thank you," which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my brothers and sisters and their families-the hundredfold granted as was promised!

And you also, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing. Yes, for you also I wish this "thank you"-and this adieu-to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours.

And may we find each other, happy "good thieves," in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both.

Someone recently advised a friend of mine to "let sleeping dogs lie." It was issued as a veiled threat, to the effect that if he brought up some past unpleasantness, the other parties to that unpleasantness (and the parties issuing the veiled threat) would make life more unpleasant for him in the present than he ever would for them.

I agree that one should let vicious dogs -- particularly ones stupid enough to sleep in the presence of danger -- lie sleeping until one has the Streetsweeper loaded and pointed at the dogs' heads. Doesn't make sense to pull the trigger until you're ready and your affairs have all been put in proper order. Otherwise, you're letting dogs set your timetable, and that simply would be letting things "go to the dogs," wouldn't it?

No, I agree that one should let dogs sleep, "perchance to dream." Until, that is, you decide the time has come to put an end to all dreams but nightmares. Perhaps at a point where one decides that he or she has nothing left to lose but what he or she is willing to sacrifice in order to "put paid" all outstanding debts of the soul owed by dogs to a man.

Of course, one could always follow the lead of Tony Soprano, who told his psychiatrist in Episode 10 of the show's fifth season: "Revenge is like serving cold cuts." That mangled malapropism may, actually, make more sense. As long as there's plenty of whole wheat bread and spicy brown mustard, all concerned may in fact enjoy the feast and forget its purpose altogether.

At this point, my friend, a Christian, ran smack dab into the wall of his faith.

Here you have the true reason why revenge or vengeance is not allowed to man: it is because vengeance can only work in the evil or disordered properties of fallen nature. But man, being himself a part of fallen nature and subject to its disordered properties, is not allowed to work with them, because it would be stirring up evil in himself, and that is his sin of wrath or revenge. God therefore reserves all vengeance to Himself, not because wrathful revenge is a temper or quality that can have any place in the holy Deity, but because the holy supernatural Deity, being free from all the properties of nature, whence partial love and hatred spring, and being in Himself nothing but an infinity of love, wisdom, and goodness, He alone knows how to overrule the disorders of nature, and so to repay evil with evil, that the highest good may be promoted by it.---William Law, Anglican Priest and Author, 1686-1761.

Blast! You mean you have to let a perfect Being "repay evil with evil"?

Come to think of it, who better? No means of exacting revenge devised by man could hope to match God's.

Here's what I told my friend: your revenge is that you get to live your life as you are, and they have to live their lives as they are, and all the while they'll think they're getting the better of the deal. And in the end, all of it, whether built by you, them, or some other Bozo on the Bus: it all goes up in flames.

The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.---Oscar Wilde

07/15/2015

Having emerged from my thumb-sucking puerile funk, I am impelled to share with you the most insightful analysis I have seen yet of the arguments for and against the recently negotiated "deal" with Iran to halt/delay/speed-bump/push-a-feather-against that nation's drive to gain nuclear weapons and, thereafter, to hasten the reappearance of the 12th Imam. From that paragon of objective reporting and deep thinking, The Onion:

FOR

Creates room for some fresh new up-and-coming state sponsors of terrorism

Breathes new life into decades-old animosity between U.S. and Saudi Arabia

Nice to see John Kerry so engaged at work

Frees Iran to brainstorm all sorts of exciting, outside-the-box ways to destroy Israel

Fresh material for Rabbi Cohen’s sermon

Really no way to know if Iran is a terrorist nation bent on destroying the world until we test it

Just feels kind of empty without current U.S. military intervention in Muslim world

AGAINST

Zero people involved with this are to be trusted

Uranium only fun if enriched beyond 3.67 percent

Stand-your-ground provision allows Iran to fast-track construction of nuclear missile in event it feels at all threatened

Might lose the comfort and familiarity of unbearably high tensions in Middle East

Complete waste of perfectly good centrifuges

Possibility that closer cooperation will humanize Iranian people in Americans’ eyes

07/06/2015

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” — Albert Schweitzer

I think that one of the most depressing forms of cruelty is to be taken for granted by a loved one. How many wives or husbands, mothers or fathers, toil each day to care for for their spouses and/or children and receive little in the way of expressions of gratitude? How depressing is that? On the other hand, how many times does a "spark" from an unexpected source, often a kind word of appreciation or a thought that inspires us, "light a flame" within us? How joyful is that?

Living our lives with gratitude for the people and things we have, "saying grace" (as G.K. Chesterton might put it) before every hour we live, every experience we have, not only enriches our own lives, but can enrich the lives of those we encounter and to whom we express such gratitude. The very act of expressing gratitude to another can "ignite a flame" that will burn within the both of us.

You Reading This, Be Ready---William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?What scent of old wood hovers, what softenedsound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the worldthan the breathing respect that you carrywherever you go right now? Are you waitingfor time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift thisnew glimpse that you found; carry into eveningall that you want from this day. This interval you spentreading or hearing this, keep it for life.

What can anyone give you greater than now,starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

07/04/2015

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz, or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself, and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, except in this form in which I am not nor are you, so close that your hand upon my chest is mine, so close that your eyes close with my dreams.